


Getting To Know You

by TheTeaIsAddictive



Series: The Beauty of a Beast [17]
Category: Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Genre: Bonding, F/M, pre-snowball scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-10
Updated: 2016-06-10
Packaged: 2018-07-14 07:06:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7158878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTeaIsAddictive/pseuds/TheTeaIsAddictive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Originally posted 3/12/2014</p></blockquote>





	Getting To Know You

**Getting To Know You**

The snow was falling heavily outside, smothering the countryside in a thick blanket. Belle glanced up at the window from the book she was reading, and wondered what her little house would be like now. The chimney always got stoppered up at this time of year with the fire on so often, the fence where Belle and Maurice kept the chickens would inevitably fall down, and the water would freeze in the ewers set out the previous night for washing themselves. At the village - Belle still couldn't think of it as home, even though she'd been living there for about ten years - the younger men would have a job shovelling snow out the roads each morning, and the dangers of slipping on ice and seriously hurting yourself was all too real. Winter at the castle, she soon discovered, wasn't that different to winter in the village. There were the same difficulties with frozen water, the same chilling breezes sneaking in through every unclosed nook and cranny, the same snow that needed shoveled out after every snowfall.

The Beast walked into the library, his eyes also on the snow outside. Every year, when the snow started to fall, he remembered that fateful night nearly ten years ago. He shuddered slightly, but if Belle had seen him he would have seemed to be standing perfectly still. She turned her head, and smiled slightly when she saw him.

"I think this is the first time I've been happy to see the snow," she said. "Every year before now, it's always meant freezing my hands off trying to help Papa around the house. But it's nice, this year. Do you like winter time?" She put her book to one side, and the Beast knew she was serious. Sometimes, he noticed, Belle only seemed to ask questions out of politeness, and she would keep a finger in her page as if she was just waiting for somebody to stop talking. He had heard enough about her home - although admittedly, that wasn't much - to know that she did this a lot in her village. The only times she'd really done it here were when they were making awkwardly formal small talk, back before he had given her the library. 

"Not particularly," he said in a low rumble. "Everything's dead outside. Sometimes the forest is so piled up with snow I can't go outside for weeks. And of course -" _I was cursed in winter ten years ago._ He stopped himself abruptly. Why had he been about to tell her that? If Belle knew about the enchantment in any more detail than she already did . . . the Beast didn't even want to _think_ about what might happen to him. Or to some of the servants. He was really starting to like some of them, after ten years of resentment. But Belle was still looking at him, puzzled as to why he had stopped. "And of course, it's not particularly comfortable to have melting ice stuck deep in your fur every time you go outside," he deadpanned. Belle smiled, and the sun broke out from the heavy snowclouds behind her. He noticed the way her brown hair turned to gold in the sunlight. 

"If we're careful not to get any snow on you," Belle teased, "would you like to go outside for a walk?"

"Of course," the Beast smiled.

They put on their respective outdoor clothing, and started walking towards the old oak tree in the middle of the garden. Belle's feet were nearly ankle-deep into the snow in places, and it wasn't exactly comfortable for the Beast to walk around on his hind legs, but the two of them made it work. 

Of course, once they started throwing snowballs they completely forgot about the cold.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted 3/12/2014


End file.
